In the current 3GPP RAN technology, a network for radio access includes UTRAN (UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network, UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) and E-UTRAN (evolved UTRAN). WLAN is another wireless access network that is widely deployed by operators in many countries in the world. It is applicable to a radio access system, an intelligent traffic wireless communications system, and a peer-to-peer or peer-to-multipeer communications system, etc. These networks may be used by anyone using any equipment satisfying relevant requirements without authorization. As increasing abundance of wireless traffic, wireless data traffic sharply increases, and the load of the existing 3GPP RAN is more and more heavy. Interoperation between the 3GPP RAN and WLAN is a method for overcoming the load increase.
The interoperation between the 3GPP RAN and WLAN is to achieve steering of UE (user equipment, which is also referred to as a user terminal, a user, or a terminal) or offloadable traffic in the UE between different radio access networks under assistance or control by RAN nodes. In particular, the RAN nodes provide auxiliary information or indication to the UE, and the UE selects an accessible wireless network or steers steerable traffic to a corresponding radio access network according to the information or indication. However, it must be noted that as WLAN is based on a contention mechanism and is flexible in deployment, it is possible that a problem of interference or relatively long contention time occurs, and quality of the radio traffic cannot be guaranteed.
It should be noted that the above description of the background is merely provided for clear and complete explanation of this disclosure and for easy understanding by those skilled in the art. And it should not be understood that the above technical solution is known to those skilled in the art as it is described in the background of this disclosure.